Animal Magic Britain on Film

CLASH!

INSTRUMENTAL

BARKS

Few families in Britain are without a pet of some sort.

There's no country in the world so crazy about pets.

CHIRPS

Most probably, it's one like this.

For today, the budgerigar is by far the most popular pet in the country.

WOLF-WHISTLES

More than eight million of these fascinating little birds

are kept in Britain today.

THEY CHIRP

The, wait for it,

Melopsittacus undulatus, that's the budgerigar's fancy name,

comes from Australia, where he flies in dense flocks.

THEY CHIRP

His natural colour is green.

He was brought to Britain in 1840

and has now found his way into every fourth home.

His popularity is due partly to increasing restrictions

on keeping cats and dogs in flats.

You'll find him in every kind of home.

Even in Buckingham Palace.

Many homes have more than one pet, of course.

Perhaps the dog has a slight inferiority complex.

For dogs are third in popularity.

Second are cats.

Some cats have been known to make friends with birds,

but it's a risky business.

MEWING

Yet in a nation of so-called cat lovers,

there are today about 200,000 stray and unwanted cats.

And the number is going up.

For nearly 40 years, the Cat Protection League

has been coping with the problem.

Stray cats are brought in regularly to the League's headquarters in Slough, Buckinghamshire.

MEWING

Once they've been registered, they're fed

and put in a pen with the other strays

until their owners claim them or a new home can be found for them.

But there's a limit to the time they can be fed and housed.

Fewer cats are now being kept as household pets in Britain.

There were about six million in 1952

and today, the number is estimated at less than four million.

This is mainly because more people live in flats.

Some people, no longer able to keep their cats, give them away,

only to have them fall into the hands of unscrupulous operators

who sell them for scientific research.

Cats are sometimes stolen for the same purpose.

Occasionally, an identification parade is held for cats

when thieves have been caught before they could dispose of them.

At this branch of the RSPCA, people who have recently lost their cats

see whether they can recognise them among those rescued.

Ownership of the cat can then be established

when the case comes up in court.

HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE

Dogs officially became part of Britain's police forces in 1947.

They've since proved so effective

that today, there are nearly 1,000 of them.

Most are trained at the various police dog schools

such as this one in south London.

BARKING

Run by a superintendent and five instructors,

this school attracts policemen from all over the world, as well as from Britain,

who come for a 14-week course in dog handling.

Alsatians make the best police dogs and many of them,

like these two, come from the general public.

They're accepted only after they've been thoroughly checked at the school.

For police training, the dogs must be less than 18 months old.

To keep up the supply of first-class dogs,

the schools also breed their own puppies.

The Metropolitan Police alone

need about 60 highly-trained dogs every year.

These six-week-old bundles of mischief are kept in check

by the London school's only kennel maid, Valerie Andrews.

Food, affection and plenty of exercise

is the routine for these school-bred dogs.

The dogs first go to their new master's home for a few months

and then, when they're about a year old, they come back for training.

It's simple, easy training at first.

The dog has to understand his master,

the master understand his dog.

For if it's successful, this partnership

will be for the dog's working lifetime.

Anything from seven to ten years.

By the fourth week of training, when obedience is improving,

the dogs are taught to attack a man.

To attack at a command.

And to come off at another command.

Then follows more advanced obedience tests

with pistol shots to get them used to gunfire.

As the course advances, the jumps get longer and higher

and now everything is done without hesitation.

The dog is obedient and controlled.

But on the word, he'll attack and hold the man.

He's also learnt to make use of his nose.

An instructor hides in a nearby wood.

The handler sends his dog off to find him.

BARKING

Having tracked him down, the dog will attack only if the man runs.

At the end of the 14-week course,

the handlers and their dogs go through rigorous tests.

And for the successful teams, it's back to duty.

In Oxfordshire, the 115 recognised breeds of British dogs

are well represented in these kennels

where John and Mary Holmes train them for almost any career,

including screen and stage.

If you don't recognise the stars of show business,

they're always ready to tell you of their latest successes.

BARKING

After appearing in a television series, Tuck, with another collie,

keeps in practice with sheep. She's a born worker.

If there aren't any sheep about,

she's just as happy taking to the water and rounding up a few ducks.

Having got them into their wire cage, she doesn't call it a day.

She doesn't trust wire cages.

A busy girl, this border collie.

Next day, she's off to London to do a bit of modelling

for a television advertisement.

This sort of work can earn a dog about £20 a day.

But for owners who think their dogs might earn money this way,

it takes endless patience

to make a dog do what you want it to do at the right moment,

under strong lights, amongst strangers and strange noises,

without wasting expensive studio time.

Thousands of people in Britain nowadays rarely see a donkey,

except perhaps when they go to the seaside.

Yet, in the last few years,

the donkey has been making a comeback as a popular pet.

Tiny Tim from Ceylon is a pygmy donkey.

He belongs to Jacqueline Dinnich.

She bought him from Whipsnade Zoo for £70.

Like all donkeys, he's friendly and intelligent.

Donkey owners say they are still the most misunderstood of animals.

Apparently, they are neither stupid nor obstinate.

They just take time to think and then form fixed ideas.

Many donkeys go to coastal resorts to spend their lives

giving rides to children along the sands.

The seaside donkeys have a charter

nearly half a century old to protect them.

A dozen rules are enforced.

They must be fit for the job

and no-one older than 16 or weighing more than eight stone may ride them.

Like most of us, they're entitled to at least one rest day a week.

If ever cars are banned from town centres,

donkeys could provide an answer to shopping problems.

Once you really get to know a donkey, it'll follow you like a dog.

And be sure it won't starve.

Do you fancy a giant chameleon?

He's nature's camouflage artist.

The green acouchi is a rat from Ecuador.

His friend, the bush baby, is a little monkey from East Africa.

The owl-faced monkey is also from Ecuador.

And who wouldn't love Chumley the chimp?

Woolly monkeys come from Brazil. This chap's called Sweep.

The beautifully-marked regal python is not a poisonous snake

and some people say they find him affectionate.

The alligator's all right when he's eight inches long,

but when he grows to 8.5 feet, he'll have to live in the bath.

And then what do you do?

Members of the parrot family have been close friends with man for hundreds of years.

SQUAWKING

Animal air traffic is a very big business.

Particularly if there's an elephant involved.

The best way to ship young Jumbo is to give him a nice comfortable crate

with a slot for an enquiring trunk.

His ticket from Central Africa costs twice as much as a man's,

but he gets free food and his own attendant on the journey.

The animals are usually collected as soon as they arrive.

But sometimes they have to wait. Possibly for an outgoing flight.

In that case, the airline knows what to do.

It sends them to the RSPCA animal hostel on the edge of the airport.

This was opened in 1952

to look after the ever-increasing animal passenger traffic.

Nearly one million living creatures go through it every year,

most of them stopping only a few hours.

Animals of every conceivable shape and size.

Fearless, ferocious little minks from Finland.

Frogs, imported for medical research.

And sometimes, a tapir.

This is a pretty rare, valuable fellow.

A quiet, docile vegetarian.

He's flown in from South America

and is in transit to Johannesburg to go to a private collector.

Neville Whittaker, manager of the airport's animal hostel,

gives him a special feed all to himself.

The correct diet for the hundreds of different animals

is one of the first things the 12 girl attendants have to learn.

SQUAWKING

One famous monkey really got attached to the airport.

Bimbo was at large there for months until finally caught

and sent to the hostel on her way to a zoo.

Zoos have to comply with the quarantine regulations

laid down by the Ministry of Agriculture.

And they always work a voluntary isolation system of their own.

Maybe even with an elephant.

New animals are always carefully kept away from the main collection

until it's clear that they're not bringing in any sort of infection.

These are the quarantine quarters at Plymouth.

And every sort of animal, from a bird to the largest mammal,

has to go through the isolation routine

until the veterinary surgeons are satisfied with its condition.

There are times when the main quarantine pens look like a zoo in miniature

with new consignments of giraffes, llamas,

antelopes and zebras all corralled separately.

To keep them contented and healthy,

you need to recreate their old environment for them.

Dry footing to protect the feet of the giraffe

or sandy mud for the wild pig to root in.

Some creatures need the steamy swamps of a dank, dark river.

Others need the brilliant light,

the coral and the warmth of a tropical sea.

For some, a patch of burning desert is all they want.

And for the oxpecker from South Africa,

who likes to live on the back of an ox,

a substitute made from wire and sacking.

You can't get a real ox into a birdcage.

And what about the animals that come out only at night?

You create an artificial moon - turn day into night -

to maintain their natural living cycle,

yet still give people a chance to see them in their moonlight world.

It is in the park of Longleat House,

the Wiltshire seat of the Marquess of Bath,

that Britain's biggest collection of lions has been formed.

46 lions and lionesses eating the equivalent

of one-and-a-half cow carcasses a day in raw meat

are roaming 100 acres of fenced-in parkland.

ROARING

These lions were bought from British zoos, from Africa

and from zoos all over Europe.

It's hoped eventually to bring up their strength to 50.

ROARING

ROARING

They're the latest attraction

and certainly a winner so far as the British are concerned

in the battle to keep up one of England's fine old stately homes.

But there's a heavy investment involved

in showing such a large collection of lions to the public.

The two miles of double fencing, one fence electrified

surrounding this stretch of Lion Country, cost £18,000.

The two-mile road for the public to drive through the area

cost £23,000 to build.

The scheme needs a permanent staff of 20

as cars have to be logged through a series of gates

to enter or leave the area.

But Lord Bath, here selling tickets, was right.

The British do like lions.

In fact, they're fascinated by them.

3,000 cars turned up on the third Sunday

of the opening of Wiltshire's Lion Country.

They just streamed in from all over Britain from morning till night

with everyone intrigued by the warning signs at the entrance.

They certainly saw lions.

Everyone saw lions. Plenty of them.

And close, too.

For some, a little too close, perhaps.

The rule of the road in Lion Country,

pull over to the left to park.

Leave the right-hand lane clear for moving traffic

and keep the windows shut.

And never, never run over a lion.

If anything goes wrong with the car, don't get out.

Just sit tight and blow the horn.

HORN SOUNDS

Three patrol crews, each with an armed guard, cover the area.

ROARING

With a crack shot keeping a lookout,

an overheated car is towed to safety.

ROARING

And this is one place where nobody ever tries to twist the lion's tail.

On whose say-so do we haul a free-roaming animal

out of the infinite plains of Africa

to keep it for the rest of its natural life

in a paddock in Regent's Park London, NW1?

Why shouldn't we? In captivity, animals live far longer.

Carefully supervised, lovingly tended, scientifically fed.

In the wild state, the large cat

consumes the entrails of freshly-killed animals,

from which it gets valuable nutrients.

In captivity, we have to feed quite a lot of raw meat.

And to this, therefore, we add bone-building substances

in the shape of sterilised bone flour

and calcium and vitamin supplements.

We do this not only with the large cats,

but with a great number of other species as well.

Flamingos lose their colouration in captivity,

so we feed a dye substance which is quite harmless,

called carotenoid, in their diet.

Normally, these birds in the wild

get this from small crustaceans, things like shrimps and prawns,

from the mud in the bottom of the rivers and ponds in which they live.

Zoos are modern places now,

tearing out old-fashioned bars and cages

to bring the public closer and give the animals more freedom.

But some say bars or no bars, it makes no difference.

They are still captive.

SQUAWKING

Now they are prisoners. Once they were free.

But think a moment.

Perhaps equating captivity with unhappiness

is a human concept and not an animal one. Sentimental.

Some people pity the big cats in their narrow dens.

But maybe the tiger wouldn't want to swap his one splendid meal a day,

the affection of his keeper, the companionship of his mate,

for a hazardous life back in the jungle and a hungry old age.

Some people say, how would we feel if it were the other way around?

Would any of us be prepared to spend the rest of his life

enclosed in one restricted space with bars or without,

whatever the compensations?

But experts believe animals can't make such comparisons.

Animals live only in the present tense.

It's obvious that for a great number, zoo life is no deprivation.

Nowadays, European zoos largely restock

by buying or exchanging animals reared in captivity

so many of their inhabitants have never lived in any other way.

And let's face it, it has its compensations.

LAUGHTER

Are zoo people overprotective, too kind?

Do we do too much for animals?

What do they give us, apart from fun?

Firstly, the chance to study rare species closely and preserve them.

In well-run zoos, there is a steady increase in population all the time.

And modern housing makes it possible to keep animals in colonies,

rather than merely in pairs.

BLEATING

It is only when they are properly cared for and feel secure

that animals will breed in captivity.

Though not every new baby has the popular appeal of Pipaluk.

Success takes skill, patience and know-how,

plus that extra indefinable something that comes with

wanting your animal to be happy, taking a pride in its fitness,

its perfection.

Professionals have these qualities.

Do ordinary people like you and I really care enough to match them?

Not long ago, a man was asked if he had any children.

"Oh, no," he answered, "my wife has Pekinese."

Everybody knows just what he meant.

All right, we do love animals.

Or do we just love owning them?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd